The fifth installment in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls franchise is set in the eponymous province of Skyrim, where the ancient threat of dragons, led by the sinister Alduin, is rising again to threaten all mortal races. Only the player, as the prophesied hero the Dovahkiin, can save the world from destruction.

Bethesda community manager Nick Breckon busted out this news over the weekend via Twitter, calling Skyrim's engine "all-new" and adding that it "looks fantastic." Rock, Paper, Shotgun followed up with Breckon soon after, asking if this new engine is some sort Gamebryo variant. Breckon replied with, "it's a new graphics/gameplay engine built internally. We'll have more details down the road."

== TEASER ==Breckon's comments appear to shoot down the popular speculation that the next Elder Scrolls game from Bethesda would be using id Tech 5, id Software's newfangled engine it's using for Rage. This rumor started circulating after id was acquired by Bethesda parent company ZeniMax.

Engines aren't always that interesting a topic, but this one in particular has been the backbone of several freakishly buggy and load-screen-heavy games like New Vegas. The move to a new engine is a promising one for a new Elder Scrolls game, which is almost sure to be a lengthy and complex affair. I think most New Vegas (and even Oblivion) fans would agree with me that dealing with "old" Gamebryo for extended periods of time is a bummer because of its issues and age.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced via trailer during the 2010 Video Game Awards. If you missed the show, no worries. Said trailer is just below.

Bethesda community manager Nick Breckon busted out this news over the weekend via Twitter, calling Skyrim's engine "all-new" and adding that it "looks fantastic." Rock, Paper, Shotgun followed up with Breckon soon after, asking if this new engine is some sort Gamebryo variant. Breckon replied with, "it's a new graphics/gameplay engine built internally. We'll have more details down the road."

== TEASER ==Breckon's comments appear to shoot down the popular speculation that the next Elder Scrolls game from Bethesda would be using id Tech 5, id Software's newfangled engine it's using for Rage. This rumor started circulating after id was acquired by Bethesda parent company ZeniMax.

Engines aren't always that interesting a topic, but this one in particular has been the backbone of several freakishly buggy and load-screen-heavy games like New Vegas. The move to a new engine is a promising one for a new Elder Scrolls game, which is almost sure to be a lengthy and complex affair. I think most New Vegas (and even Oblivion) fans would agree with me that dealing with "old" Gamebryo for extended periods of time is a bummer because of its issues and age.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced via trailer during the 2010 Video Game Awards. If you missed the show, no worries. Said trailer is just below.

Bit old-ish this news but that's good nonetheless. Could've sworn I heard a certain Todd Howard say that they're were going to use a heavily modified GameBryo engine though which I guess this sort of is?...

I don't think we can blame all the bugs on the engine... there were, after all, some competent and relatively bug-free games released that were using that engine. I think it has more to do with the massive scope and complexity of the world, and the developers themselves. But hey, new engine is awesome anyway. Hopefully it'll be just as permitting when it comes to mods as the old engine was.

Thank you for being the first story to mention that Oblivion/Fallout 3 were using ridiculously buggy and aging technology powered by Gamebryo, instead of badmouthing the engine itself (especially since it's just adding insult to injury for any of the newly unemployed people who worked on it).

About fucking time. Gamebryo was satan's asshole incarnate. I can't honestly believe there were people who were trying to argue that that shit engine wasn't severely damaging the in game experience. Either way I have a funny feeling that this "new" engine is going to look suspiciously like Gamebryo. I just don't understand why they didn't go with id Tech 5, I mean it's pretty clear at this point that id makes far better game engines than the garbage Bethesda tries to make.

Thank god, now we know they haven't been ignoring the elder scrolls series in favor of fallout. But I wonder what are the implications for the next fallout game assuming there is one. Won't fallout 4 now have to use this engine?

For me it is not only the bugs, but the loading times and how it limited the worlds in their games. New Vegas in particular was ruined for me. At the beginning of the game I had so much interest and excitement in seeing the Strip, since it was an untouched city and should have provided a bigger and more lively hub that hadn't been seen in Fallout 3 or anywhere else in Vegas. Unfortunately, it was cordoned off with ugly fences and terrible load screens and the same, boring, repeated cookie cutter casinos and interiors. It was such a disappointment for me that it made me stop playing the game right then. I had bought the game and I sold it.

With a better engine, they can have larger, streaming worlds that will allow their games to be much more epic. Hopefully they can have more characters on screen as well for some actual epic battles that you'd expect, especially for a fantasy world like Elder Scrolls.

Thank God. I skipped out on New Vegas just because I was so tired of the pudgy faces and weird glitches in Fallout 3 and Oblivion, this had better be all moonwalking Dogmeats or no moonwalking Dogmeats, I won't accept anything in-between.

Definitely happy to hear this. I love Oblivion and both of the new Fallouts, but the Gamebryo engine is a mess and it really needs to be put to bed. Not all engines have the staying power that Source or Unreal do.

I always thought the amount of hate levelled at the Oblivion/Fallout engine was rather out of step with reality. It wasn't the engine that made NPC's run around like they had sticks up their behinds, that was the 'skill' of the animators. It wasn't the engine that caused everyone to sound like the exact same person, that was the developers choice to use the three same actors for half a million denizens. And so on, and so on. In fact, when Oblivion came out it was pretty bloody impressive in its scope and beauty. Granted there were load points all over the shop but then there are few open world games (at least at that time) that don't require them. Still, hearing that Bethesda are rebuilding their tech from the ground up is super exciting and hopefully will only be a step forward for the game. Not only in its look but also in its role-playing possibilities.

" I always thought the amount of hate levelled at the Oblivion/Fallout engine was rather out of step with reality. It wasn't the engine that made NPC's run around like they had sticks up their behinds, that was the 'skill' of the animators. It wasn't the engine that caused everyone to sound like the exact same person, that was the developers choice to use the three same actors for half a million denizens. And so on, and so on. In fact, when Oblivion came out it was pretty bloody impressive in its scope and beauty. Granted there were load points all over the shop but then there are few open world games (at least at that time) that don't require them. Still, hearing that Bethesda are rebuilding their tech from the ground up is super exciting and hopefully will only be a step forward for the game. Not only in its look but also in its role-playing possibilities. "

Exactly my sentiment. I love how everyone's complaining about how shitty Oblivion's engine was, considering that 4 years ago it was pretty effing amazing. Criticizing Oblivion's engine for not being modern enough is like saying black and white films were bad because they didn't have color (well, not quite...)

If the last 2 engines were evident then this new engine basically means new bugs that will never be resolved. I really hope that this time around that Bethesda actually learns how to make a good user interface as well. Hell there are so many things wrong with their RPGs that question why I even like their games sometimes... I just really get hooked, despite a lot of the shortcomings.

I played Fallout 3 a year late and the only bugs I ran into after 90 hours in-game were ALL event scripting bugs. No amount of engine code re-writing is going to fix that.

Pretty much what I've found all along - lots of things are being wrongfully attributed to the game and gfx engine. Bad looking faces? It's the tool they use to gen up the face meshes not the engine. Falling thru the world? That would be the tools they use to build the geometry not error checking for holes or not auto-snapping objects together. Animations freaking out? All those in-engine animations are scripted... poorly. Busted quest logic? Bad scripting again.

Anyway I'm sure the engine is actually crap for entirely other reasons. Elder Scrolls has been synonymous with Bugs ever since #1. Game breaking game-save destroying bugs.

" . It wasn't the engine that made NPC's run around like they had sticks up their behinds, that was the 'skill' of the animators. "

I agree with most of what you said, but I wouldn't blame the animators for the deadness of the NPCs. The tech gave them limited options; pretty much 5 movement animations which are then slapped onto characters who need to traverse all kind of shit. Add to that a couple throwaway animations for eating and the like, all made so that any character sitting at a plate could do it. Game with more natural animation (see: Uncharted 2) generally fade between a bunch of animations.

I guess what I'm saying id that the animators for Bethesda probably have the talent to make great animations (how else would they be working at a AAA studio?), it's just much more difficult within the confines of their technology.

While I'm glad they are finally swearing off Gamebryo, honestly I'm just so freaking psyched for a a new Elder Scrolls game that the engine is the last thing on my mind. I've been waiting for another Elder Scrolls ever since Bethesda shipped Fallout 3 and was becoming disheartened by the rumors of yet another Fallout game (don't get me wrong, I love F3 and F:NV) or even worse, that TES V would be an MMO. I'm just so thrilled to enter that world again, finally. I hope they DLC the shit out of it too. I want big, Fallout 3 style DLCs or even better, 3-4 DLCs the size of Shivering Isles.